ADHD, Autism, Obesity and Sleep Disorders

July 17, 2012

Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley

Guest Information

Episode Description

Dr. Lance Levy is a Pediatrician, Bariatric Nutrition specialist, and researcher with a multi-disciplinary practice in Toronto specializing in the treatment of severely overweight children and adults. Kim Banting is a Registered Nutritional Consultant who graduated with honors from the Global College of Natural Medicine and a member of the International Organization of Nutritional Consultants. She began her own business, Flourish, in 2009. They describe their work with young people with challenges such as ADHD, Autism, Obesity and Sleep Disorders. They highlight what’s known about the trends and links among the challenges and disorders as these relate to young people. They discuss what current research is revealing. They talk about the role of family caregivers in caring for family members with the disorders and identify information needs of family caregivers. As activists, they state the priorities they see for family caregivers, the healthcare system and the food industry.

Family Caregivers Unite!

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Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home.
They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney.
And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.

Dr. Gordon Atherley

Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.

Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.